


White Room

by TeaRoses



Category: Hotel Dusk
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:56:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/pseuds/TeaRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She remembers that, too -- white walls, white sheets, white light filtering down over her as she lay in the bed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Room

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Moe Machina in the Yuletide 2008 Challenge.
> 
> Thank you to threerings and lightningrapier for beta help. Any mistakes are my own.

"I was worried about you, when you got that fever. But you seem all right now."

Mila blinks her eyes and opens them when she hears the voice. She can feel the couch under her back, and she tries to think. Where is she? What is she looking for here? After a few minutes of trying to wake up, she remembers a little better. She's taken a trip; she's in a new place, searching for something. But there are places her mind doesn't want to go, thoughts she keeps pushing away without meaning to. Has she been here before?

The woman is there, Rosa. She is smiling at Mila, stroking her face. "Do you feel better?"

After a moment Mila nods and sits up on the couch, gripping her knees. She wants to thank Rosa for everything she has done for her, letting her stay for free like this, but she still can't speak. That's something she hasn't figured out yet -- people are supposed to talk, and she remembers talking to her Papa, but somehow she can't form words. She knows her own name -- Mila Evans. And her father is Robert Evans, and he owns an art gallery, the Gallery May. And after only those simple thoughts her mind grows confused again.

"That cold soda water helped, right? That's what they always used to give me when I was a kid and had a fever."

Mila can remember being much younger and being ill, her Papa giving her spoonfuls of red gelatin to settle her stomach. She stands up, begins walking around the room. The walls are white, just like the walls in the last room she stayed in. She remembers that, too -- white walls, white sheets, white light filtering down over her as she lay in the bed. For a long, long while she was asleep, and those days all run together in her mind. She would hear voices -- nurses, her Papa, but she couldn't respond. But now she can't seem to respond either, not even to Rosa who is acting like a mother to her. That's another thing she can't remember, her mother. Doesn't everyone have a mother?

And what happened, that made her sleep for so long in the white room?

This room is friendlier, and has photographs on the walls. She stops in front of a picture of a bride and groom.

"That's me, dear," says Rosa. "Would you believe it? I was young and pretty once, too! But now I'm just old Rosa."

The woman in the picture really is pretty, and she looks very happy. Mila can tell it's Rosa, though. They have the same smile, the same gentle look in their eyes.

"I haven't seen my husband in years though. He was a sailor, and he just... sailed away. I miss him sometimes."

Rosa looks sad now, and Mila wishes she knew how to comfort someone.

"Eh, I should just shut up, huh? You probably don't need me chattering at you."

Mila shakes her head. She doesn't want Rosa to be quiet. Her talk gives Mila something to think about besides the fact that she is alone in a place she doesn't know, in a life she doesn't understand.

She looks down at the brochure on the table. "Hotel Dusk, a great place for a getaway vacation!" And now that's where she is, the Hotel Dusk, just like the glossy pictures. She just doesn't know why. But she has a feeling she isn't getting away from anything. In fact she's getting close to something, something she really doesn't want to face. She tries to push it out of her mind.

Mila doesn't even know where the brochure came from. She was standing by the side of the road, and a man offered her a ride, and said he could bring her to the Hotel Dusk. In the back of her head her Papa's voice said "Don't get into cars with strangers," but she got in the car anyway. The man was a little surprised that she couldn't talk, kept trying to make conversation and then getting frustrated when Mila wouldn't answer. But he brought her here, at least, and now maybe she can figure everything out.

"Are your parents waiting for you somewhere, dear? Do you want me to call them?"

Rosa has asked her that three times already, but Mila always just shakes her head. She is certain her Papa is waiting for her, but she has no idea where he is. Part of her had thought he must be here, at the Hotel Dusk, but he isn't. Mila rubs the bracelet on her arm, the one from her Papa. She has to find him.

"I hope that Louis hasn't been bothering you," Rosa says with a "tsk" noise. Her eyes don't look gentle now; she looks angry. "Such a pain in the neck, that guy is, and no hard worker either. Not like me, cleaning all day."

Louis had looked at her, and said "Hello, beautiful." Mila didn't feel beautiful, but she gave him a little almost-smile anyway.

"Christmas is already over and here I have a present," Louis had said. And, "Let me know if you need anything while you're here, OK?"

She hadn't really known what to say, even if she could have spoken. Why were people being nice to her, when she had wandered in from the dusty road with no money to pay for a room?

Rosa is still talking about Louis. "You watch out for that one. All he thinks about is girls. If he, you know, makes a pass at you or anything, you come straight to Rosa!"

Mila isn't quite sure what she means. But she doesn't think Louis would hurt her. He just seemed happy to be able to look at her, and that's not so bad.

"Well, anyway, Mila, Mr. Hyde is putting a Christmas tree up in the storage room. It's for Melissa. That poor girl didn't even have a Christmas. Can you imagine that? I don't know what her father was thinking, not even letting her have a tree. How sad."

Mila has a vague memory of someone hanging tinsel in the other white room a few days ago. But when Rosa says "Christmas" Mila mostly remembers her Papa, and a tree with a green scent. He would give her presents to open.

"I always loved Christmas when I was little!" Rosa's hands are clasped over her chest. "My parents would decorate the whole house, and I'd make paper chains for the Christmas tree. And they always had such nice presents for me. We didn't live in California then, and one year they bought me my own sled. I was the happiest girl in the world! I took that sled to every hill in town."

Now Mila can feel the smooth wrapping paper under her hands, and hear her Papa's voice, but she can't remember what was inside the box.

"So, anyway, Mila, if you want you can go down there and see the Christmas tree. I know you aren't a little girl anymore, but you might like it."

She doesn't quite feel like a little girl, but she doesn't remember growing up, either.

"Now that you're feeling better, you should go right over there and look at it. Just be careful if that Louis is around."

Mila nods. She will go and see the Christmas tree, and pretend she is sitting in her father's lap, opening a gift. And for a while she will be a girl again, with someone taking care of her, not a grown woman who isn't quite sure who she is.


End file.
